A Lutheran Visionary and Stigmatist

According to Bernard Ruffin (Padre Pio –The True Story, Our Sunday Visitor,1991) one of documented stigmatists who was not a Roman Catholic was Elsie Nilsson Gjessing, a member of Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Born in 1904. she received the stigmata as a child in Sweden, and it is said to have continued until her death at age seventy-nine. She has been described by one of her pastors as a sweet and humble woman, "so ordinary in every way." She was allegedly gifted with many ecstasies and she was also one of the few married stigmatists. The wounds in her hands, feet and side were said to have bled copiously from Holy Thursday night until 3 P.M. on Good Friday. 

Additionally during Lent, Elsie was alleged to have experienced what she described as “'hellfire", in which her body became so hot that cold cloths were placed on her in an attempt to cool her body temperature. Incidentally, this same phenomenon of extreme body heat was also experienced by St Padre Pio and documented by his physician, wherein upon taking the Padre's body temperature on several different occasions, the thermometer would literally be pinned at its highest reading (of 120 degrees). 

Mrs. Gjessing herself has stated that the suffering and anguish that she experienced was "only a tiny little bit to let the world know what Christ went through. It is only a sample - just as small as a nail- that He lets me have." In 1970, her pastor, Dr. Morris Wee, recorded some of her ecstasies. She claimed to have seen and spoken with Christ and her guardian angel, as well as with Martin Luther. Mrs.Gjessing, who like many mystics was ridiculed and shunned publicity, was also reputed to have been the instrument for many healings as she touched the sick with her stigmatized hands.

Source

https://www.mysticsofthechurch.com/2014/02/remarkable-facts-concerning-stigmata.html

Previous
Previous

Rumors of Mysterious Eucharistic Miracles

Next
Next

The Miraculous Healing of C. S. Lewis’s Wife